26 01732 759725 M&A customers are ones that we want, and that the founders can keep working together. In the case of IT Hotdesk, their founder Gordon Christie will be staying on with us as Head of Scotland.” Karm adds that as the first B Corpcertified MSP in Scotland, Redsquid is well placed to tap into the region’s sustainability agenda. “It’s nice to be in that area where there are so many conversations around sustainability and the transition to renewables. To be a part of that is really exciting,” she said. Cross-sell opportunities As part of Redsquid, the Aberdeen office can now offer IT Hotdesk’s SME customers (typically with 50-60 users) a broader range of products, creating significant cross-sell opportunities, especially in high growth areas such as security, UC systems ahead of the ISDN switch-off and AI, which Redsquid now offers as a managed service, providing training, workshops and advice on AI roll‑outs. “Obviously we have a very big UC product portfolio that they can use, everything from UC phone systems, data services, leased lines, SD-WAN and complex networking solutions to mobiles which they haven’t had before. They have already started to bring those to their clients,” explained Karm. While Redsquid has gained expertise in certain verticals, such as education through the acquisitions of Covue and film and production through that of OptivITy, it has customers in every vertical and the main purpose of this and future acquisitions, whether of IT MSPs or comms business, is to expand its footprint across the UK, to gain additional in-house skills and resource and to advance its ambitious growth strategy. “This acquisition shows that this transition that we are on right now isn’t just words,” said Karm. “We are acting upon it, we are going national and we are going to be doing it a whole lot faster than before, enabling us to make a greater difference to even more customers.” www.redsquid.co.uk are highly skilled and their project consultants are experts in security. So many of our clients are doing full-on digital transformations, focused on security, and to keep up with demand, we need more team members and resources in-house.” The integration of IT Hotdesk increases Redsquid’s headcount to more than 70, double what it was 12 months ago and expands its customer base to 1,800 companies of all sizes, with a big focus on SMEs with 50 to 500 employees. Karm says she prefers acquisitions to hiring as a way of gaining in-demand IT skills, adding that the new employees also benefit. “We find that smaller businesses with 12 employees or so normally get really excited about becoming part of a bigger team. We can invest in team members, we can send them on education courses, we can upskill them, so they get more career advancement than they had before. Sometimes new team members go into completely different departments and become managers there. We always look across the group to identify talent we have and where they are best utilised.” Karm takes pride in the fact that to date Redsquid has not made a single redundancy as part of an acquisition, which she attributes to the time Raithatha devotes to finding companies with the right cultural fit. “Sohin is always working with other founders. That is what he does fulltime now. He is quite picky about the companies that we bring on board and spends a lot of time making sure a company is right for us, that our people fit together, that their Redsquid, the fast growing MSP, has established a base north of the border in Scotland with its third acquisition of 2024 and its fifth in 14 months. The company already had customers in Scotland, but the acquisition of Aberdeenbased IT Hotdesk, a 12-person MSP specialising in engineering and project consulting, will give it a stronger presence across the UK and bring new capabilities into the company. Redsquid owners CEO Sohin Raithatha and COO Vince Mignacca are planning to make three further acquisitions before the start of the company’s next financial year in April, effectively doubling turnover from almost £10 million last year to £20 million – half-way to its target of £40 million. The acceleration of Redsquid’s acquisition strategy follows refinancing with alternative finance provider ThinCats. A good fit Camilla Karm, Redsquid Director of Sales and Marketing, told Technology Reseller that IT Hotdesk was a good fit for Redsquid for a number of reasons. “First, its geographical location. Until now, we have been based in the south of England, although for years we have had quite a sizeable customer base in Scotland. We wanted to move further north so we could reach more clients and also be closer to the ones we already have there. It is really important for us to continue to be a local partner, and by having an office location in Aberdeen, we can reach a much wider area than we were able to do before and be close to our clients in Scotland. “On top of that, IT Hotdesk has a lot of skills in their team. Their engineers Fast growing MSP to accelerate acquisition strategy through partnership with alternative finance provider ThinCats Redsquid extends reach into Scotland Sohin Raithatha, CEO and Vince Mignacca, COO
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